This invention relates to dispensers of defensive compositions for use in repelling attackers.
Pepper spray and mace and other disabling or defensive compositions are highly effective for providing personal defense against attackers both human and animal. Defensive compositions are packaged in relatively small spray dispensers that people usually carry in purses or pockets. Some defensive spray dispensers are designed to attach to key chains. However, defensive spray dispensers are usually always kept concealed in purses and pockets. Concealing a defensive spray dispenser in a purse or pocket makes it very difficult to rapidly retrieve and prepare it in time to repel an attacker. In fact, most people, especially women, who are attacked and who also carry a defensive spray dispenser are usually overcome by their attacker before they have a chance to access and use the defensive spray dispenser.
Thus, what is needed is a defensive composition spray dispenser that is disposed with ornamentation so as to form an ornament that is capable of being worn as a piece of jewelry and easily accessed in the face of an oncoming attacker. The decorative features of the ornament conceal the defensive spray container and yet allow the disabling composition it contains to be easily and efficiently dispensed.
The above problems and others are at least partially solved and the above purposes and others realized in an improved apparatus including a receptacle containing a quantity of a defensive composition, an attached nozzle for directing a flow of the defensive composition from the receptacle through an opening, and attached ornamentation disguising the receptacle and the nozzle and that does not interfere with the flow of the defensive composition from the receptacle through the opening of the nozzle. The ornamentation includes an opening communicating with an opening of the nozzle. The apparatus further includes an attached necklace, which is constructed so as to be easily severed should a user need to do so in order to effectively wield the receptacle, activate the nozzle and direct a resulting flow of the defensive composition toward an aggressor. The ornamentation is attached to at least one of the nozzle and the receptacle and preferably the former. In a preferred embodiment the ornamentation is a single attached ornament. However, the ornamentation can be a plurality of attached ornaments if desired.
Consistent with the foregoing, the invention also contemplates associated methods.